Chapter 28

IN WHICH WE FIND THE NATIVES MORE UNFRIENDLY THAN THE COAST

The bright light ahead had disappeared. Tugg was berating Pedro for getting off his course and running the schooner aground. In a minute, however, another light flashed up nearby and I saw that a huge bonfire had been kindled on the shore not more than a cable's length away.

"What in the e-tar-nal snakes is that?" bawled Captain Adoniram Tugg, seeing this fire. "That ain't the Professor--not a bit of it."

In a minute the flames rose so high that we could see figures moving in the light of them. And wild enough figures they were--half naked fellows, taller than ordinary men, and waving spears and clubs.

"I believe some of your Patagonian giants you have been telling me about have gone on the warpath, Captain," I said.

"Not a bit of it! Not a bit of it," he snarled. "They're as tame as tiger-kittens."

"Just the same I'm going to get my gun and pistol," I declared, and I dove below.

When I came back to the deck two more fires were burning. The shore--which was a low bluff--was illuminated for some hundreds of yards. There was a gang of a hundred or more dancing savages about the fires. I was frightened; those savages were not "gentled" enough to suit me.

The captain and Pedro had evidently come to a decision. The fires revealing the coast as they did showed them where the mistake had been made. Tugg said:

"Can't blame Pedro. That beacon lantern we saw had been shifted. I hope those wretches yonder haven't got the Professor foul. But one thing is sure: They brought that big lantern clear across the inlet and set it up on the west shore. No wonder we ran aground. It was a pretty trick, I do allow."

"And these are the natives you told me were perfectly harmless?"

"Not my boys," said Tugg. "There are wild tribes about, as I told you. This bilin' of trouble-makers are from up country. I'm dreadful afraid they've attacked the camp first and put the Professor and my boys out of the way. They must have been on the lookout for the Sea Spell. Had sentinels posted along shore. They want to loot her."

"And it looks to me as though they'd do it," I observed. "I never shot at a man, Captain; but I am going to begin shooting if those dancing dervishes start to come off to us in those big canoes I see there."

"Don't begin to shoot too quick, Mr. Webb," said the Yankee skipper. "I reckon we'll be able to handle them all right."

"But your crew isn't armed."

"You bet they ain't. And me with more than two thousand in gold aboard?" he snorted. "By the e-tar-nal snakes! I guess they ain't armed. I wouldn't trust 'em with firearms."

I began to feel pretty bad. I knew they were a murderous looking lot of fellows; but I didn't suppose that Tugg traveled in such peril all the time. I was learning a whole lot for a boy of my age. To be adventuring about the world "on the loose" as old Tom Anderly called it, had seemed a mighty fine thing. But just at that moment, with the schooner shaking on the shoal, the fires flaring on the beach, and the savages dancing and yelling at us, I would have given a good deal to have been where I could call a policeman!

But Adoniram Tugg showed no particular fear. I was the only person who had a weapon on deck. The Yankee skipper did not even go down for his own gun that hung over his stateroom door. Instead, he turned to Pedro and gave a quick command.

The mate and two of the sailors dashed for the forward hatch and had it off in a minute. Tugg turned to me again, drawling just the same as usual:

"Keep a thing seven year, they say, and it's bound to come handy, no matter what it is. I bought a miscellaneous lot o' truck out o' a seaside store thar in Buenos Ayres because there was a right good chronometer went with the lot. Ah! that's the box, Pedro. Rip it open--but have a care. Don't bring fire near it--hey! you there with the cigaroot! Throw it away. You want to blow yourself to everylastin' bliss?"

"They're manning those canoes, Captain!" I shouted, for my attention was pretty closely fixed upon the savages.

"Let 'em come!" he grunted. "We'll fix 'em, Mr. Webb; we'll fix 'em."

There were four large canoes. I heard Tugg whispering to himself about them as he watched the half-naked paddlers urging them toward the schooner:

"Ugly mugs. From up river. Come three or four hundred miles in them canoes, mebbe. Wisht I knew what has happened the Professor. They sartainly have cleaned our headquarters, or they wouldn't have displaced that beacon lantern." Then he turned to urge Pedro. "Got that mess o' stuff out o' the box? That's it. Now, Mr. Webb, never mind them guns o' yourn. Put 'em down and bear a hand here."

He was the skipper and I obeyed; but I hated to give up the rifle. It looked to me as though we were in for a hand-to-hand fight with the savages--and they really were giants. I had read of these Patagonians; but I had never more than half believed the stories they told about them. I could realize now that any fifty of them one might see in a crowd together would average--as the books said--six feet, four inches in height.

As I came forward he was rapidly distributing--he and Pedro--the articles which had been packed in the box. He gave half a dozen to each man of the crew. He likewise broke up lengths of slow-matches--that Chinese punk that is usually used when fireworks are set off. And it was fireworks he was giving me--half a dozen good-sized rockets!

"What shall we do with these?" I demanded. "Why, Captain Tugg! you don't mean to illuminate the schooner? Those savages will pin us with their spears if we light up here."

He spoke first to the crew, and they ran at once and crouched under the bulwarks on that side nearest the shore. The canoes were within a hundred yards.

"Quick!" he said to me. "Start the first rocket fuse. Lay it on the rail here, son, and aim it at them canoes. We'll pepper them skunks--now, won't we?"

All along the line of the rail I heard the fuses sputtering. Little sparks of blue and crimson flame shot into view. "Let 'em go!" bawled Adroniam Tugg.

The four canoes came fairly bounding over the water. I never knew that canoes could be paddled so rapidly. They were almost upon the schooner when the first rocket went off with a terrible sputter. It shot like a bird of fire right into the leading canoe, and then another, and another, shot off until the air between the schooner and the canoes seemed filled with shooting flames.

The savages' yells changed monstrously quick. When the rockets began to blow up and sprinkle around balls of red and blue and green fire, the boats were emptied in a moment or two. Wildly shrieking, the naked savages sprang overboard and swam back toward land, while we along the rail of the Sea Spell sent broadside after broadside of rockets after them.

We saw them splash through the shoal water, gain the land, and disappear beyond the illumination of the fires before all our skyrockets were used up.

"Avast firin'!" roared Captain Tugg, and Pedro, the mate, repeated the order in Spanish. "Now out with a boat, Pedro, and save those canoes. They'll come in handy for our use."

No matter what the situation might be, the Yankee could not lose sight of the main chance. We gathered in those canoes and then awaited daylight before we made any further move. We found then that the savages had totally disappeared.

"We can warp her off and I doubt if she's damaged at all," declared Captain Tugg. "But I'm too worried about the Professor to begin that now. I'm going to leave Pedro here and we'll take some of the boys and sail up to headquarters and see what's happened there. You can bring your hardware, Mr. Webb. We may have need of it after all, for if they've troubled the Professor, I swanny I'll shoot some of the long-legged rascals!"

What I had read of white men in wild countries had led me to believe that they usually shot the savages first and inquired into their intentions afterward. But Captain Tugg assured me that in the fifteen years he had been in this country he had never been obliged to more than string a few savages up by their thumbs and ropes-end them!

"They've been ugly at times--not my boys around here, but some of the far, up-country tribes--and I've been obliged to show them things. I'm kind of a wonder-worker, I be. Them scamps that waylaid us last night will scatter the news of that fireworks show throughout ten townships, and don't you forgit it. Jest because Adoniram Tugg can show 'em something new ev'ry time is what's kept his head on his shoulders for fifteen years."

"Goodness! they're not head-hunters?" said I.

"No. But they'd take a white man's head and sell it to tribes farther north that _do_ prize sech trophies. Oh, this ain't no country for tenderfoots, son. There ain't no tract in the back-end of India, or the middle of Africa, that's as barbarous as a good wide streak of South America yet."

And I could believe that later when, after sailing some miles up the inlet, we came to the burned ruins of a collection of huts and sheds. This was Tugg's headquarters, and his partner, Professor Vose, the man I had come so far to see, was not there.